Yes, Uncle Roger, I wish I could be there with the other DS fans to hear KLS describe the various filming locations for HODS on the Jay Gould estate.
The first time I toured the Lyndhurst Mansion was in 1983. There was a very nice lady there, who was a tour guide at the estate. I very “innocently” asked her if the two DS movies had been filmed there and she told me that she was there in 1970, when Dan Curtis & company arrived to begin filming HODS. This lady remembered that Dan Curtis had large tarpaulins hung in several of the rooms to control the lighting in those rooms and make them look gloomier during filming.
Walking around the grounds of Lyndhurst, I spotted what appeared to be the remaining foundation of the building that had been used for the outdoor shots of the Old House on the original DS series. Apparently, this building burned down to the ground while DS was still on the air. There was a great deal of underbrush surrounding the ruins back in 1983.
I wonder if you can still see the ruins today and if KLS will be showing the DS fans, where she once danced around the Old House veranda as the winsome ghost of Josette DuPre in 1966?
Not too far from that site on the estate, there was a tree-lined road, that looked like the spot where Barnabas put the bite on Daphne in HODS. In addition, the small house, where Nancy Barrett and John Karlen (as Claire and Alex Jenkins) stayed in “Night of Dark Shadows,” was also on that same road.
That elevated train trestle next to the Hudson River, where Quentin wrestled with the demented Gerard in NODS, was gone in 1983 as I recall.
When I toured Lyndhurst nearly forty years ago, you could not go up into the tower room, which Quentin used as his art studio in NODS. (Remember when you could spot the Tappan Zee Bridge, now the Mario Cuomo Bridge, when Quentin admired the panoramic view up there of the Atlantic Ocean along the rocky coast of Maine? Oy vey!) Maybe Ms. Scott will be able to get a few fans up there to enjoy the view?
The large dining room in Lyndhurst is very impressive. That was a great scene in HODS, when a frantic David Colllins ran in to tell everyone assembled at the dinner table, that he had just encountered the resurrected Carolyn Stoddard on the grounds of Collinwood. Maybe KLS will reveal to the tour-goers which specific epicurean “delight,” Mrs. Johnson prepared for the dinner attendees in that scene?
I hope we get an in-depth account of Ms. Scott’s tour today. I wish that ProfStokes were there to provide us with another one of her highly informative and engrossing reports on a DS event.
